Millions of Americans misuse of contact lenses - the bear too long, do not clean them
properly - and that causes nearly one million cases of eye infection in the United States each year, a new report finds.
Such infections are known to be clinically keratitis, an infection of the cornea, the transparent dome which covers the colored part of the eye.
Keratitis can cause pain and inflammation, and in severe cases, even blindness, according to experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who wrote the new report released Thursday.
For the nearly 38 million Americans wear contact lenses, the greatest risk of this infection factor is the poor maintenance of their lenses, agency experts said.
"Contact lenses offer many advantages, but they are not without risk," Dr. Jennifer Cope, CDC medical epidemiologist, said at a news conference.
"Keratitis can be a scary infection, but it is preventable if people follow a healthy lifestyle and take care of their eyes and their lenses," she added.
Some bad habits, such as sleeping with contact lenses, do not clean and replace the lens solution frequently, and let them get wet contact lenses while swimming or showering, greatly raises the risk of keratitis, Cope.
For example, "people who wear their contact lenses at night more than 20 times more likely to get keratitis," she said.
However, when treated early, most cases of keratitis can be easily cured without any lasting damage, she added.
The treatment can be costly, however. According to Cope, a visit to the doctor on average for the condition costs about $ 151 and the average visit to the emergency room costs $ 587.
In all, keratitis adds about $ 175 million to Americans health expenditure each year, she said.
For the report, CDC researchers analyzed three national databases ambulatory care centers and emergency rooms. Their efforts created, for the first time, the amount of keratitis estimates occurs in the United States. They estimated that each year there are some 930,000 visits to doctors' offices and outpatient clinics and visits to 58,000 emergency for eye infections.
More women than men have seen their doctor for an eye infection (63 percent) and ended up going to the emergency room (55 percent), the researchers found. Keratitis affects all age groups, from teenagers to the elderly, at about the same rate, the CDC team said.
Dr. Alfred Sommer is a professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He described keratitis as "an injury or inflammation of the cornea, the clear part of the front of the eye through which we see."
"There is no question that many people like to use contact lenses instead of glasses. Using contact lenses, however, does carry the risk of infection and, in extreme cases, blindness," said Sommer.
If keratitis is not treated quickly and effectively, it causes scarring that interferes with vision, he said. And "if it is not cured, it can punch, and in the worst cases, the eye can be lost. The recognition and prompt treatment is essential. Patients almost always are aware of the problem because it usually causes severe pain in addition to blur the vision. "
Sommer warned that unclean case reports lenses and wet cleaning practices can result in contamination of contact lenses and greatly increase the risk of keratitis.
However, this risk can be minimized, he said, being sure to never keep the contact lens in the eye during the night and being very careful to follow the proper techniques for cleaning and storing them.
To avoid keratitis The CDC recommends:
Wash hands with soap and water before handling contact lenses,
Deleting contacts before going to bed, showering or swimming,
Scrub and rinse contacts in disinfectant after taking them out,
Scrub and rinse the case of contact lenses with a solution for contact lenses, dry and keep the case upside down with caps
Lenses when replacing at least every three months.
The CDC also recommends transport glasses should contact lenses should be removed.
The new report was released on November 14 in the journal CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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